1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for communicating information to vehicles from a remote location, and more particularly, to a method and system for filtering and buffering user searchable event program information and broadcasting the event program information to the vehicles.
2. Description of Related Art
Navigation systems for determining a route from a starting point to a destination point are well known in the art. In addition, navigation systems having capabilities for determining the geographic position of a reference point are also well known in the art, such as a Global Positioning System (“GPS”) or a self-contained system having distance and bearing sensors. As an example, a commonly used navigation system allows a user (or driver) of a vehicle to enter a destination into the navigation system. The navigation system then looks up an appropriate route from an original point (using its geographic positioning capabilities) to the destination point in a road map database (e.g., the route may be a route having the shortest distance from the start point to the destination point, one which would take the vehicle the least time, or some other route), and guides the user to the destination along the searched route through a visual display or vocal guide.
Recently, navigation systems have been improved to provide and utilize vehicle-related or geographically-relevant, real time traffic information in guiding the user to her destination, described in further detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/093,919, filed Mar. 29, 2005, titled Display Method and System for a Vehicle Navigation System, the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference. There also currently existing systems and methods of providing other types of location-based event program information to vehicle users. More specifically, event program information can comprise such time sensitive event program information as movies, sports events, plays, operas, concerts, etc. Location-based event program information is event program information that is scheduled to take place at venues within a predefined distance from a vehicle's current location or within a geographic zone (such as a postal zip code). The drawback of such existing systems and methods is that the vehicle navigation system does not maintain the needed data in system memory, on a hard disk drive, or a DVD disc. Thus when a user desires to view such information, it must first be received by the system via a broadcast or cellular network. The downloading of such a large volume of data requires a significant amount of data bandwidth, as well as long wait times for the user before the desired information can be displayed.
Thus, there remains a need for systems and methods for collecting, utilizing, and providing vehicle location-based event program information that is frequently updated and searchable by the user, wherein a vehicle navigation system receives, processes, and buffers event program information in memory while the navigation system is initializing, so that location-based event program information is quickly available to display to the user. A system that automatically updates itself daily in the background would reduce the bandwidth of broadcast data required to provide the user with selectable filtered event program information on her vehicle's navigation system when the user utilizes the system. Such a system would reduce the time needed for the vehicle navigation system to filter and process the event program data, as well as reducing the demands on the broadcasting network, so that less costly and sophisticated broadcast network systems are required to transmit location-based event program data to vehicle navigation systems. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide a vehicle navigation system that receives and processes real time information (e.g., traffic, weather, and other geographically-relevant or vehicle-related information) in guiding the user to an event program she has viewed and selected from her vehicle's navigation system.
Moreover, there remains a need for a method and system for providing location-based event program information that is available for display to the user soon after the navigation system is initialized, thereby minimizing the delays needed for the system to retrieve and filter the data based on the vehicle's current location. Moreover, it is desired that the navigation system be provided with enough information to properly determine efficient routes to venues the user selects from the event program information displayed without being inundated with low priority, redundant, or superfluous traffic information. Thus, there is a need for providing event program information to a user in a useful, efficient manner that is easy to select by location with minimal wait time.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a vehicle navigation method and system that overcomes the above-described shortcoming of the prior art while retaining their advantages.